Rushdie doesn't regret writing 'Verses'

LONDON, Oct. 1 (UPI) -- Indian-British author Salman Rushdie said he doesn't regret writing "The Satanic Verses," a book so controversial he had to dodge death threats for years.

Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa encouraging Muslims to kill Rushdie shortly after the book was published in 1988, causing the scribe to go into hiding for nearly a decade. Some Muslims thought the book insulting to Mohammed.

"The question I'm always asking myself is: Are we masters or victims? Do we make history or does history make us? Do we shape the world or are we just shaped by it? The question of do we have agency in our lives or whether we are just passive victims of events is, I think, a great question and one that I have always tried to ask," Rushdie told The Times of London. "In that sense I wouldn't not have wanted to be the writer that asked it."

Although the writer is no longer in hiding, the fatwa can't be rescinded and he still must be careful, the report said.

When Rushdie was knighted last year protests in Pakistan and Malaysia called for his death, the Times noted.